Lingvano - Learn Sign Language

I don’t normally write reviews but I needed to for this. I found out about this because a lot of deaf creators I follow have been sponsored by/recommended this app. I took an asl class at my local community college but I had to wait over the summer to continue and wasn’t able to be conversational with what I had learned, so I lost a lot. I decided to try out this app so I wouldn’t have forced breaks and I LOVE it. I learned more useful stuff in the first two days of using the app (like, before I even started the 7 day free trial) than I learned the entire semester of the class. I’ve been using it for about 2 weeks now and I think I’d be able to sign a little with someone else. I also like that instead of just showing you the signs, and moving on, it quizzes you on them and forces you to use it. That was my problem with the ASL app, it never quizzed me so I would lose stuff quickly. My only two criticisms I’ve seen so far is I wish it would actually record you signing sometimes to make sure you’re signing correctly, but I can see how that would be hard to do on an app. The other one is when it quizzes you on the “thank you” sign and asks you to type what it’s saying, it only accepts “thanks” as correct and not “thank you”. It throws me off, especially because the person signing in that video seems to be mouthing “thank you” and not “thanks”. Other than those small criticisms though, I love this app. I’m hoping to try to find some asl in person events/hang outs soon so I can practice in an actual setting. I highly recommend this app.

I almost never take the time to write reviews, but this app is fabulous. I am on a 43 day streak, and I am so delighted with my progress. For context, I spent some time in deaf circles as a child, more than 40 years ago, but have had almost no ASL practice since then. In just a few entertaining minutes a day, this app has helped me regain everything I once knew and then some. It starts out deceptively easy, but has a phenomenal depth of both ASL (including grammar!) and Deaf culture. I am so glad that I got a year subscription. I often do a lesson first thing in the morning, but if I forget, it gently reminds me not to break my streak come afternoon. My progress has been such that, last weekend, I felt confident enough to show up at a deaf gathering in my town. I really like that there is no sound and that the teachers are deaf themselves. This forces me to really work on understanding sign language, rather than lipreading or depending on speech or captions. My only suggestion would be to add a feedback button. There are occasional text errors which could easily be pointed out if there was a forum to do so. overall, highly highly highly recommend this app. I’m having a blast with it!

Worth the price. My plug and reminder, you are paying for Deaf individuals work compensation which is a big deal. Second, I have been taking classes with people in my local ASL Deaf cohort and decided to try this out to support my receptive and maintenance skills. It teaches features of sign, fingerspelling and builds in a very visual way that Deaf people teach as well as uses ASL grammar which, as a hearing person has been the biggest learning curve since the structure is different and using this app helps to demonstrate that and break it down in an interactive way. This is learning a second language, it doesn’t follow English grammatical rules, so if you become frustrated, yes, you’re learning a different language not just a visual version of What you speak. Looking through the upcoming courses and the concepts that this app will teach me in the future, I am excited to use this app as a support as I continue to interact with my local community and develop my ability to effectively communicate with them. Additionally, the dictionary tool is absolutely amazing and I love looking up a word I haven’t gotten to that I don’t already know. Yes, over the year it may feel pricey to some, but remember, you are compensating paying real people and this will help you to engage with real people in the world. The perspective of that can shift that this really is pretty small relative to the impact you can have on others.